Operational Safety Manager

The role

As an Operational Safety Manager – US, you will play a critical role in ensuring the safe execution and oversight of Wayve’s on-road testing and robotaxi operations. You will be responsible for monitoring safety performance, investigating incidents, and maintaining operational safety standards across a rapidly scaling environment.

This role places a strong emphasis on Safety Assurance — ensuring that risks are visible, continuously understood, and acted upon in real time. You will operate as an independent safety function, providing oversight of field operations, identifying emerging risks, and ensuring that safety processes are consistently applied. The operational safety team acts as a continuous check and balance on the rest of the organization, ensuring that Wayve’s plans and objectives are met in the safest manner possible.

You will work closely with engineering, fleet operations, and global safety teams to ensure Wayve’s deployments are safe, compliant, and defensible within US regulatory frameworks (e.g. DMV, NHTSA), while contributing to a strong, proactive safety culture.

Key responsibilities:

• Safety Assurance & Monitoring

• Incident response and investigation

• Safety Risk Management

• Cross-Team
  
  Collaboration:
  
  Work closely with engineers, operators, and global safety teams to align on best practices.

• Safety Culture & Training

In order to set you up for success as an Operational Safety Manager at Wayve, we’re looking for the following skills and experience.

Essential

• 5+ years experience investigating incidents in a fast-paced, safety-critical environment

• Experience in operational safety, risk monitoring, or safety assurance roles in a fleet, logistics, field engineering or operational environment

• Strong analytical mindset — able to interpret data, identify patterns, derive insights and present to a range of audiences from engineering to management

• Demonstrable ability to operate independently and make sound safety judgments

• Good understanding of industry-relevant standards and guidelines (e.g. AV, automotive, or similar)

• Experience with human factors, including workload, attention, and driver/operator interaction risks

• Ability to develop and implement safety processes and procedures

Desirable

• Experience with autonomous vehicle or ADAS testing and development

• Experience of automotive, aviation, defence or manufacturing safety management systems

• Understanding of US autonomous vehicle regulations (e.g. CA DMV, NHTSA) and reporting requirements

• Familiarity with automotive systems, electronics, and safety implications

• Experience supporting robotaxi or ride-hail operations

This role is a full-time role based in Sunnyvale, CA (hybrid) and the reasonably estimated salary for this role ranges from $135,000 to $200,000, plus a competitive equity package. Actual compensation is based on the candidate’s skills, qualifications and experience